River Songs to Save Salmon

Buy a CD and save some salmon. Artist4Action’s latest effort to solve environmental problems through creative collaboration is Songs for the River, and the CD features an array of songs from local favorite David Jacobs-Strain’s “Ocean or a Teardrop” to songs by national stars Jackson Browne, Ani Di Franco, Don Henley and more.

Cat Koehn of Arists4Action says she sent letters and called musicians, asking them to donate the use of their river songs for the cause. “Pete Seeger called us up the moment he got the letter. One of the thrills of my whole life was talking to Pete Seeger,” she says. Proceeds from the CD’s sales for the next four years will go directly to Columbia Riverkeeper’s efforts to save Northwest salmon.

Koehn says there’s no more complex a problem than dams and salmon in the Northwest right now. “We will not accept extinction as an option,” she adds.

She points to removing dams on the Snake River as “a concrete thing that many, many environmental groups have been pushing for a long time.” Those dams, Koehn says, benefit few people but harm many salmon, and the fight against their removal “shows the recalcitrant nature of the vested interests that have a lot of money.”

She hopes Artists4Action’s efforts will springboard the prominence of the salmon issue and “get public some understanding so that they can advocate for the biologically sustainable thing.”

Songs for the River has its first CD release party 7 pm Sunday, Feb. 17, at Cozmic featuring performances by David Jacobs-Strain and other artists, and sales of the new CD. For more on the salmon issue go to http://Artists4Action.org

About the Author

Camilla Mortensen is associate editor and reporter at Eugene Weekly. She is also a folklorist and a community college and university instructor. She has two horses, an assortment of dogs, and lives in a 1975 Airstream trailer. Sometimes all these details collide in unforeseen ways.